A viable arcane mage key build

Classes Mage
1

(It should be noted that the one exception to this build is Workshop where you should just bring your standard raiding ST build)

Talents:

Tier 1: Rule of Threes
Tier 2: Shimmer or Slipstream
Tier 3: Incanters Flow if it’s below a 12. Rune of Power for anything 12 or higher but IF works just fine as well.
Tier 4: Resonance
Tier 5: Chrono Shift
Tier 6: Reverbrate
Tier 7: Overpowered

Major Essence: Focused Azerite Beam (Iris)
Minors: Conflict and Strife, Breath of the Dying, Formless Void.

Build stat priority: Int for spellpower but as far as secondaries go, Crit is your best friend here. Other stats weigh out roughly the same.

The main thing that holds arcane back in keys is lack of viable cleave. In terms of single target, few if any can catch an arcane mage on most mythic+ boss fights as fights are shorter and execute phases don’t last long enough to make up the ground for arcane burst. Sacrificing some of that ST doesn’t hurt the spec much overall for those boss fights. Charged up isn’t as useful by that metric outside of said boss fights and a majority of the dungeons are adds to begin with. Resonance actually causes extremely high damage to your arcane barrages on cleave packs. I’ve seen my Barrage go as high as 170k on a crit with 40k cleave hits which is insane for an instant cast. This comes at the loss of ToTM which is marginally useful in keys to begin with. Reverbrate allows you to barrage cleave early and often while slowing down mana loss from spamming arcane explosion.

Basic rotation tips:

  1. NEVER use arcane power with arcane explosion. The damage addition is negligible as mastery bonus does not apply to AE. If AP is off cd, switch to a standard single target rotation and burn one target down instead. If adds are low health just hold onto AP.
  2. Your primary rotation for 3+ targets will be spam AE till you hit 4 stacks then barrage. It is simple but effective and allows for usage of Iris in between without too much loss
  3. Your primary rotation for single target will be the same as it is for raid ST.
  4. If fights are short enough, try to time your evocation windows in between fights rather than during them.

Notes on Essence choices: Iris is by far the go to choice and makes up for a lot of the cleave shortcomings of arcane in keys. Worldvein is good and sims decently but requires standing still. This build places an emphasis on mobility. Breath of the Dying is a default choice at this point for all specs as a minor (some consideration could be given toward making it a major but need to test it). Conflict and strife is free and consistent Versatility. It is more useful as a passive than the randomness of Purification protocol bursts and lends itself better to all situations rather than just AOE. Formless Void is the surprising choice here. The int proc is nice but the nicest thing about it is that it can have a high uptime if essence usage is rotated some in your group.

(Workshop is the exception to this build as it is full of ST encounters with a grand total of 4 AOE/cleave pulls. It is better to run a pure ST build for that)

1 Like
2

I actually agree with most of this, except:

Mastery scaling doesn’t matter. If you’re on 3+ targets just use AP on aoe.

2 Likes
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I’ve found it doesn’t make too much of a difference. The general rule is to avoid it since it does comparable damage using the standard AB burn to whatever aoe/cleave you’d get. But it is definitely more nuanced than a flat NEVER. Say it’s the end of a pull and there’s a non important mob before the next pull then yea might as well. Also during quaking definitely something worth considering

4

Why not use the Essence that reduces CD of AP? I found this to be actually pretty amazing for Mythic.

Granted, I didn’t play a lot of higher Keys on Arcane.

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I have considered it but need to test it as I hesitate because I don’t know how often it procs. It is a no brainer if it does proc often enough

6

I do not mean as a major essence, but minor. The minor is a flat 23% reduction. Brings it down to a 1.5min CD basically.

7

Ahh. Worth consideration. Will try it this week

8

I think AP cooldown is 1.5 min initially? I have the essence as one of my minor, and my final AP cooldown is 1.1min. I like it cus my trinket cooldown is 2min. So during boss fight, i can pop AP with trink, then 1 min later just AP, and then AP + trink again.